A few days ago, I was given the opportunity to interview Donald Glover for over two hours while he was in Toronto. That conversation turned into this Noisey story, “Donald Glover: Fear and Trembling”.
The original transcript of this interview clocks in at over 8,500 words, which obviously had to be trimmed down if we ever expected anyone to get through the entire thing.
Here is our conversation in it’s entirety, both the recorded version as well as the transcript.
I know that hardly any of us love reading anymore because of the internet (haha, get it?) but I encourage you to go through as much of what Donald has to say as possible. You’ll probably learn something, but more importantly, you’ll relate.
Based on your more recent public appearances, you seem to be coming from a darker place.
We were talking about something that happened earlier, and I think it relates. We were in the airport and I was waiting in line at the ATM and there was a guy in front of me getting money. I came up behind him and he got nervous, so I went to the side and waited for him to finish. I don’t think white people know how much effort in my day is put into making them feel comfortable. And I think in general, people don’t know how much of my time is dedicated to making them feel comfortable.
So are you sick of that?
Maybe it has to do with being older, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to make people comfortable all the time. Plus, we just feel like we’re going to die soon.
Like, in a hedonistic-rockstar-Danny-Brown type of way? Or the world is doomed?
I don’t know, we’re just around death a lot. Since I started hanging out with Fam I just stopped trying to make it okay. People want you to think that it’s okay. Even with something like that instagram post, people were trying to convince me that everything is okay. Oh, you’re okay, take these pills you’ll be okay - the world is okay. But it’s not okay. And instead of trying to make it okay and being told that I need to do certain things to cope, I’ve decided that maybe nothing is wrong and everybody feels this way. So maybe I should go with it. And since I’ve adopted that view, I wouldn’t say that things are working great, but I’m less tired.
People want you to think that it’s okay, but it’s not okay. And instead of trying to make it okay and being told that I need to do certain things to cope, I’ve decided that maybe nothing is wrong and everybody feels this way. So maybe I should go with it.
Every time I say something that I think someone else shouldn’t know, that’s the time that normally gets the biggest response. Anybody that I look up to was doing that, they were doing something that scares them. So I thought, if I’m going to die soon, I might as well do everything that I wouldn’t normally do.
What’s going on with the TV show, is it still called Atlanta?
That’s just the working title, somebody gave it to me but I like it because it has a lot of flavor to it.
Do you watch Love and Hip Hop?
My boys do (Fam does not). But they watch it because his sister styles people on there.
Are there hipster strip clubs?
Any place that is mentioned a lot in rap songs eventually becomes the hipster joint, just because hipsters listen to rap songs. Magic City is the one now, The grandfather of hipster strip clubs was the Clermont Lounge, which used to get shouted out in songs and people would tell you to go visit because there was a stripper with saggy titties or whatever. But now people are gravitating towards Magic and those clubs just because trap music is so mainstream and people are visiting these clubs out of a sense of tourism, almost.
Why are you in Toronto?
We’re here to do some interviews with radio stations, but I don’t believe in doing those traditional interviews any more. It’s so easy to twist words around and I feel like with what we’re doing, the truth will eventually just come to light anyway. I’m not worried about the internet anymore. When I said that thing about NWTS being here and then gone, people took that as a slight towards Drake and reacted to that online and that’s just funny to me. I don’t know what this movement is, I don’t know what we’re doing.
It’s Roscoes Wetsuit.
Exactly.
But seriously, what is Roscoes Wetsuit?
It’s anything.
Fam: The fact that this interview happened because I was creeping on your twitter, or the fact that we did press for this album in Washington Square park because we didn’t want to do MTV news in a hotel. Tomorrow we’re supposed to do five interviews, but we’re not going to play that game. We’re going to invite them to just come out and chill with us. They’re all just going to ask me the same questions, they’re all just going to try to pull headlines from whatever I say and I don’t see the point. It doesn’t make any sense. Everybody just wants to eat so badly that nobody is moving. So that’s why we’re just going to tell them to come kick it tomorrow and get their interview.
I don’t even know what this is, I don’t know what my movement is. At this point with the internet, it feels like we’re just giving a hand gun to an infant just going “don’t shoot yourself”. It speeds up everything and we get information faster, and I don’t see the flip side of that. Like, people calling me a nigger or a faggot isn’t new - the internet just makes it easier. And I don’t see the flip side of that, I don’t see where the good in that lies. Other than us being more aware of stuff, but I’m not more aware - I only pay attention to what’s on my timeline.
You could make the argument that we’re at least more informed. Look at the KONY thing.
We more informed, but there are so many opposing viewpoints. Some people say he’s helping, others say he’s supplying militias. Nobody knows who to believe or who to trust.
But isn’t the flip side of the internet the fact that it allows for people like me to be here interviewing you, or for you to have a career?
Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet. I think it’s great and it’s the only reason I’m here, I’m just like everyone else. I love watching Worldstar and all that shit.
What would your immediate reaction be to someone yelling out “Worldstar” when you’re in public?
Hit the deck. If I hear it and it’s close to me, I’m just doing to duck because someone is about to get hit. But niggas was screaming Worldstar when we were in Atlanta and someone was shooting.
Where was this?
Atlanta at Opera nightclub. We were in ATL hanging and we came out and someone just started shooting in the parking lot. And everyone was yelling Worldstar and running around until the cops came and broke everything up.
That’s weird.
I mean, it’s not that weird.
It is for Canadians.
Oh wow that’s right, you guys don’t have gun here.
Yeah, gun crime has kept a lot of people from crossing the border and performing here because they’re promoting a violent lifestyle.
It was hard for me to get cross the border today, the guy was giving me a real hard time. I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to say that it’s because I’m a rapper, but that probably was the case. The word “rapper” now has become so powerful. That’s why lately, I’ve been trying to get away from that label because of everything so associated with that because of the limits that come with it.
I remember Nipsey was opening for me at a show about a year and a half ago at Las Vegas, and they didn’t let him in. The venue didn’t let him perform. They paid him, but he didn’t perform. And that’s because Nipsey’s core fans are very … for real. He knows how to control his people and it wouldn’t have been a problem, but because he’s a rapper he’s lumped into a negative view. All those gangbangers still showed up because Nipsey was advertised to come, and I got some of them to become my fans. But “rapper” is a detriment and that show showed me that. After that show I tried to tell him that I can talk to someone or do something, but he just said that it was something he had to work through.
How do you work through something like that? Not just Nipsey, but yourself. How do you shed that image of being a rapper?
It depends on how old you are really. When we went to Philly the show had the be shutdown because there was an electrical storm, so the fans came out to the tour bus to get some stuff signed. A lot of them were fifteen year old girls just screaming, trying to get things signed. Then the cops showed up with their batons and started clearing them out. And that’s what pissed me off. I know that people assume that I’m like the next Wayne Brady or whatever - which is fine, because that’s part of my brand and I’ve been making people feel comfortable around me for such a long time - but it’s just like the ATM thing. Like, the cop is going right after these little black girls, because he knows their parents aren’t gonna sue or whatever. And I get out of my bus to try to stop it and the cop yells “get back in the fucking van or I’ll fucking bust your fucking skull in you fucking retard”. But our white tour manager just got up in the cops face, and the cop didn’t do anything to him.
So is that because you’re a rapper or because your black? Would you say the same thing would happen to someone at a Jeremih show?
No. Because here’s the thing: he kept saying “rap”. And to us, and to you, we’d be like “no, it’s a Childish Gamibno show. It’s going to be filled with young girls and nerds who like puns” there’s no danger there. But they heard rap and that was it, it triggered something. And that word doesn’t mean the same thing to different generations.
Is that something you see going away as they age themselves out?
Absolutely. I think it’s going to be fine, eventually. We’re at a weird point right where I believe that people just think that everything is okay right now. We’re in a post-Obama world and everything is supposedly okay now. Fam works with inner city kids and a teacher told a kid “hey you can do anything because the president is black” and that just pissed me off. Because you can’t. I like Patrice O'Neal, he’s like a prophet and like a black Louis CK. He asked everyone at his show to put their hand up if they thought they were racist, and nobody put their hand up. But then he asked them if racism still existed and everyone said yes. So where are all the racist people? We live in a time where you can’t prove it. And that’s part of life, I’m not mad at that. And I don’t want this to be a race topic. But it still skews how I look at things.
It will slowly change. I probably won’t be alive to see that change, but it will come about as people just keep fucking each other and we all eventually just become a uniform shade of brown. Skin will mean different things too. America is supposed to be this melting pot where everything is thrown in and the best rises to the top but that’s not true.
Of course I want to know about culture. I want kids in 3022 to know that people lived in Italy. And because you live in the place, you do that thing. I see everything as organisms, everything is growing. Even the internet to me is an organism. And these things just grow organically. And culture is just as organic as a plant, so it grows just the same way. What I think the internet has done, is it just sped that up. Now, you don’t have a chance to truly live with something or it doesn’t even get a chance to reach you. It’s like What Did The Fox Say, it’s huge.
I have no idea what you’re talking about
Exactly.
So it’s like Terio.
Exactly. That’s a perfect example. And Terio hit our group first, and because of that it felt like it was “ours” and then it spread, but my mom doesn’t know who Terio is. And when Fam brought Terio to me it was within days of it actually happening, and I immediately knew he was from Atlanta. Just the way the cousin said “ooh”, I knew this dude was from the southside of Atlanta. Internet shit never escapes us, but that goes back to, you want to be first. Everyone does, and people are scared to grow. But I don’t want to be seen as an indictment. One thing I’m worried about is that people are going to take this to mean that I’m against the internet. Or that’ I’m like “people need to slow down and read books again"
Are you reading books right now?
Yeah, I’m really into Kierkegaard shit right now.
Man, that is not going to make you happy
It does make me happy, because it makes me feel less alone. One of the main reasons that me and Fam get along so well is that we both feel very alone.
Fam: but not lonely though.
Not lonely though, just alone
Was that the point of the movie?
Yeah. I mean, there was no point to the movie.
At all? You weren’t trying to do something with it?
I was just trying to make something.
Why?
Just to make cool shit. I feel like if we’re all going to die soon, like we feel we are, I only want to make dope shit. I want something people can look back on and see what they were doing. It was shot on film and the imagery that we used, and the fact that it was all on a loop…
Fam: It’s like ASAP was saying. And it's not even like name dropping, but ASAP saw the movie and he kind of complimented him, but then dissed him at the same time and then complimented himself. He said, “yo I know you wanna be me, but lowkey I kinda wanna be you too”
He said low key, the fucked up thing is, I wanna be you. I see you doing your artsy shit, I see your film, I see you doing your thing. But I got what he was saying, and that goes back to not wanting to be a rapper.
The film does have to do with the album and the feeling that I’m trying to get across. But when it started, I just wanted to do something cool and interesting, and personal. Because Bink! the producer came and lived in Chris Bosh’s mansion with us while we rented it for four months. He and I were talking about fitting in. And I was telling him that I feel like I try too much sometimes and just shit like that. And he told me that no matter what, someone is always going to feel how I feel. So that film just started out as me wanting to do something cool, but it captured how I was feeling at the time. Not just in the house but in the world. The drifting, the not-knowing. Whether it be through relationships or through the house. That’s what I was trying to do.
Did you write the whole movie?
Yeah, parts of it were improvised. With Topenga, I just asked her to break down something personal that happened. Everything in the movie is very personal. Just like the instagram notes. I just wanted people to get across something that they don’t normally talk about, and why aren’t they talking about it. I mean, I feel that way: why am I pretending to be Troy? Why am I rapping about puns? When actually, I’m afraid that my parents are gonna die or I’m afraid that I’m going to be Tyrese. Those feelings are the types of things that really connect us, not showing the car you drove or the stack you have. And I have no problem with showing off. I grew up in Atlanta, that’s the stunting capital. I just feel that the more personal it is, the more it will connect. I fully expected people to be like, fuck this movie, it sucks. Fuck this guy, he’s pretentious. But I just said fuck it, let me tell the story of how one time, I kissed a boy. Am I gay? I don’t know, maybe. But the maybe is what’s really connecting us.
I think there’s a lot of nostalgia on tumblr and shit because we’re so afraid to move forward, just because of the shortness of time. Remember our parents used to talk about the 70s, and that was twenty years ago to them. So they’re going “remember how dumb we looked two decades ago” but now thanks to this cycle, we’re going, “remember how dumb we looked, two weeks ago?” Because people are aware of how things change and what’s cool, and that cycle moves faster. So that fear is the only connecting factor, at least for me. Every time I say something that I think “someone else shouldn’t know this”, that’s the thing that normally gets the biggest response. So I feel like, anybody that I look up to was doing that. They were doing something that scares them. So I thought, if I’m going to die soon, I might as well do everything that I wouldn’t normally do. I used to have this fantasy that when I turn 78 I’m going to do everything I hadn’t done thus far. I’m going to do heroin, kill a person, blow dudes, just everything that’s left to do in life. But as I get older, I realize that there’s a good chance that I won’t even make it to 78. First of all, I’m a black male. Secondly, every male in my family has a life span of like mid-60s. So technically, I’m mid-life right now. Technically, genetically, I’m in my mid-life right now even though I’m not that old. But that’s how I started looking at shit, so I started to wonder why I’m doing stuff. Why am I trying so hard to be nice to the guy at the ATM and making him not scared of me, or why am I not doing drugs, why am I living for other people? That’s when I decided that I just wanted to create cool shit instead.
How concerned are you with pushing stuff forward then?
I feel like that’s the only thing that I can grab onto that makes sense and has a purpose to it. I’m extremely lucky in the fact that I’m alive and I’m human, that doesn’t happen a lot in the universe. This should never happen. And every other human before me was trying to push stuff forward. Like, my dad, I know what his purpose was. He made sure that his kids are more educated than him so that they didn’t have to make the same decisions that he did. And you have to man up when you have kids, and that’s what he did. My great grandparents bought their freedom and walked from Maryland to Virgina nad bought the only land available. Have you ever seen American Gangsta, you know Bumpy, the guy at the start who has a heart attack? My grandpa used to work with him, he was his right-hand man in real life, they ran numbers together. But all of those guys had this drive to go out and make something of themselves by any means necessary. So I look at all of them, and I wonder why does it stop with me, and I realize that it’s because I have so many options available. And watching Kanye and my other heroes do shit that they were afraid of made me ask myself, and this is not a diss to Community, but why am I sitting here and just smiling? Is it for residual cheques?
Community does seem like a sweet gig.
And it is! It’s great, the people I worked with are great, the food was great, I got recognized everywhere and people loved me for it. But like, I was waking up screaming sometimes.
Why?
Because I knew I was gonna die. And if I knew that it was just like “this guy from community died” I’d be really disappointed. I can’t live like that. I’d feel guilty that I didn’t do anything for us, for humans.
What part of the culture that you’re a member of do you want to push forward the most? The music, the writing, the acting, the comedy?
I see it all as the same thing. People ask me when I’m going to do standup again, but I don’t see the distinguishing line. I just want to talk to people. Because I don’t see the difference between what Kanye and Louis CK do. I watch Kanye when he talks and I laugh and I get it because it’s real and honest - and that’s why it connects so well. Louis CK does the same thing and he makes me a better person for watching him and he pushes things forward. But I don’t see the distinguishing line. I just want to push human culture forward. And I’m sure Kanye sits there and says “I want to push fashion forward” but I’m just trying to push humankind forward. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just working, but I’m creating things that are wholesome and feel honest for me. They’re personal and painful and scary, but if I was doing something the safe way I wouldn’t be doing it properly.
Do you worry about spreading yourself too thin? Wouldn’t your cause have more validity behind it if you only focused on one thing; if you locked yourself in a room with a Corbusier lamp.
I feel like if a person does that, locks himself away to make better music, then that is his purpose. He has that mindset: I have to do this for the music. That’s why he’s here, to push music forward.
I don’t think what I did was that different. After I came off tour, we went to Australia and I was just super depressed. I mean, I tried to kill myself. I was like really fucked up after that, because I had this girl that I thought I was going to marry and we broke up. I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing. Camp was a 13 year old writing for 13 year olds, and I didn’t know where to go from there. I always wanted to make 3 albums. I wasn’t living up to my standard, I was living up to other people’s standards, and I just said I don’t see the point. So that’s what we did after Australia. I rented a mansion, I invited over a bunch of people that I could trust like my brother, Fam,
Trinidad James?
Naw he just showed up, but Trinidad James is the best because he’s honestly “the nigga”. He’s such a nice guy and he’s so funny. And we were both raised Jehovas Witness and we bonded over that - he got our sadness. You know, Prince and MJ were both raised Jehova Witness too. And the weird thing about that religion is that they teach you that when you die that’s it. My brother and I have been atheists since we turned nine, but the religious guilt is still there. You get all of the guilt and none of the promise of it paying off one day. And so Trinidad and I bonded over that, because one day he called the sandwiches we were having Congregation Lunches. Then it all started to make sense, his approach and how he talked about shit just made sense. Like, he’s just here to have a good time. He’s not freaking out about that freestyle, he’s just like “yeah it was bad” but he made a rap song about gold and they flew him to Jamaica and Sweden for it. So I invited everyone I trusted and we lived there for four months.
There’s so many people that are subscribed to what you’re doing, that are already fans of you from other ventures you’ve had. Does having those people put more pressure on you to succeed?
Of course I’m going to worry because I’m super self-conscious. I want to make people happy. One of my most vivid memories is from when I was at Stone Mountain in Atlanta, and at the end they have this laser show. It’s a confederate thing and we were the only black family. So at the end when the South “gives up”, the people who were sitting around us started throwing beer cans at us. And I remember one of my first thoughts being “how do I make them like me”, because I didn’t do anything to them. So I think I carry that with me and I want to make people like me. But that’s never gonna happen. I’ve already seen that on Twitter where someone said they don’t like what I’m becoming, but that’s me. And I know I’m going to let people down, it’s going to happen regardless. If I made an album just like Camp, it would happen. So why am I trying to make them happy?
What do you consider validation on the internet? Does a publication like Pitchfork giving you a 1.6 influence you going forward?
I think Pitchfork helped me a lot. First of all, there’s no way I can make something worse than that. It would be impossible. It put a lot of people on my side too. But I’m not worried about them because they’re a brand, and I didn’t fit thier brand. If I worked for Pitchfork, I wouldn’t give myself a 9.0 either. They’re a brand, they sell tickets to a show they put on every year. They’re not going to give a 1.2 to someone who can be at their show and sell tickets. But they’re not the same publication that I grew up wit anyway. I used to pour over all of the stuff they wrote about, but it’s changed and that happens. Any good idea starts with a movement, becomes a business, and ends up a racket. And I’m not calling Pitchfork a racket, they’re a business. And I didn’t fit their business structure. But I just want there to be a conversation, and this started a conversation about what Childish Gambino stands for, and trying to figure out what an artist stands for gives them staying power.
You can say what you want about Macklemore, but he stands for shit. That’s what made him huge. You know how easy it would be for people to just disregard him and say “bye Macklemore, you’re Psy now”? It would’ve been VERY easy if he didn’t have something to stand behind. He’s the dopest rapper right now, he’s doing the dopest shit. He’s giving gay right speeches right now.
But he’s a straight white man
Exactly. But he acknowledges that.
But does that make it ok?
Fam: I’ll be honest, I was the only person in the crew that listened to The Heist and didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it, I saw what he was trying to do with it and I thought that was cool. What changed it for me is when I saw him say in an interview “I know that I’m eating because I’m white”. After he said that…
I became a fan forever.
Macklemore is so self-aware. I know it may seem like a ploy, and especially because he’s a straight white male, but that’s genuinely him.
It’s like JFK. He was like “yeah, I’m a good looking white dude. But you know what, everyone else uses this power for evil and I’m going to use it for good” and he didn’t have to do that. Most of the time, for a black woman to get shit done, you have to be one in a gazillion, you have to be Oprah. And even then you need a rich white dude to okay it. As much as people want to say that things are changing, white men still run the world. So I have to give props to Macklemore. Do I think he’s the best rapper? No. Do I think he’s changing the way hip-hop works? Not really. But, he has a big mouthpiece because he happened to be born a white dude who was raised a liberal in Seattle. He didn’t have to do gay rights speeches, he didn’t have to say he has a one-up because he’s white. But he did. Most of the time when we see some racist shit, we can’t speak up. But a guy like Macklemore can. Like this weekend in Vegas, we couldn’t speak up and I was almost in tears over it.
What happened in Vegas?
Fam: We got fucked with so bad. They wanted to arrest us.
My parents are disabled, so they can’t walk around. But the venue that I’m performing at won’t let us inside. So I’m talking to the security guard, and I’m telling him “look, I know you’re saying no to everything because it’s a festival, but I’m performing tonight. My name is Childish Gambino, my real name is Donald Glover you can look it up on your phone or tell your boss, but my parents are right there and everything is blocked and they can’t walk. Can you please just help us get inside?” And they’re just like, no. Then the cops come up to me and they say “can I help you” so I say “yeah I’m supposed to be performing and I’m just trying to get my parents inside” and he says “get off the street” because we weren’t standing right on the sidewalk. So we get on the sidewalk and the cops just cruise off. And then I go back over to the security and the cop is with him and they start yelling at me again, so Fam says “yo just chill” and the cop loses his shit. “Did you just tell me to chill? License and registration.” So they force them to drive off, but Fam pulls over to get out and the cop says “get the fuck out of the street” and you can see in his eyes that if we make a wrong move or say something else, they’ve got us. And that shit happens all the time. This time was different because he emasculated me in front of my parents. This is the one time I can flex in front of my parents, and they’re not letting me do it. I can’t even get them into my own concert. And you can’t complain, because then you become the whiner. You become Lupe. You’re out there going “it’s not fair” but the thing is, you know it’s not fair. Every white person knows that things aren’t fair, everyone does. So you can’t go out there saying “it’s not fair”, you need to just go out there and try to do great shit and hope the rest falls into place.
My parents were cool about it after. My dad pulled me off to the side and told me that shit like that happens and I have no control over it. My mom told me she was really proud of how I handled it and she knows it could’ve gone another way - my brother has been arrested three times - but she knew that I handled it properly.
That’s crazy. That would never happen to me because a) I’m white and b) I like to think Toronto doesn’t work like that
It’s funny because there was this white guy on Community and I was talking about some shit that happened and he said “that’s crazy that that happened to you in LA, there’s no racism in Canada though” and I got mad because it’s like, there’s racism everywhere, and you’re not letting me tell you? You’re just going to assume you know better?
That was the worst part of that Pitchfork thing. I know people are going to trash the music, I see them doing that shit and I see where they’re coming from. There’s shit on Camp where if I saw it as a kid, I would say that that shit is corny. And I’m willing to take that. But the shit that I didn’t like about that Pitchfork article and that really made me mad is that the writer, and I know this nigga too because he lives on my block - fuck that nigga. And he’s afraid of me, and that’s something he’s gotta deal with. But the thing that I didn’t like in that review was that he said “oh well Jay Z and Beyonce go to a Grizzly Bear concert - there’s no problem. This kid that is on Camp, he doesn’t exist anymore, because there’s people like Tyler the Creator etc.” and I’m like “Fuck You”. You don’t know. You didn’t grow up like me. Niggas still come up to me everyday and they say thank you for writing that song because I feel that way. That’s the thing, you don’t get to tell me that racism is over. Again, I don’t wanna be the whiny racecard dude, but when I was a kid and when I was 13, that’s how I felt. And a lot of kids still feel like that, they come to the shows. But it's disingenuous. Don’t say to me that because Jay Z and Beyonce went to a Grizzly Bear concert that shit is better. That doesn’t mean shit. I was going to Rage Against the Machine concerts when I was younger, I was going to rock show, that doesn’t make it okay. Yeah those kids were cool with me, but I was alone. There were things that I didn’t understand, culturally. But I’m just saying, that’s the one thing that bothered me most about that ordeal.
Where would you want to see yourself in the rap game? Do you think that you should be more respected than where you are?
This is something that I take from comedy. Chris Rock always says to me, it’s never the audiences fault. If I’m not respected, that’s on me. Like, who ever has won from coming out and says “I need to be respected because I’m awesome”, like nah that’s a Tyrese move. They’ll come around eventually. Like Kierkegaard, nobody respected him, but he knew that when he died that his enemies would respect him. There’s so many instances of people not helping us or not respecting us and getting frustrated and fighting you, and then when we get to the top you’re like oh we made it. Alone. Kierkegaard says that truth is A power. Truth isn’t THE power, because if it was the truth would always win. But you can look at the internet and see that’s not true. I read some shit recently where they had something I never said in quotes, and I wasn’t upset that they did it, but I was upset that it went through all these channels and nobody said “you can’t put quotes around something nobody said”. So truth is not power, it is a power. You force people to join you and once they start joining you because they have no choice, that’s when people start running to you because they don’t want to be alone. That’s why I’m trying to make truthful shit that people can’t run away from. Hopefully one day people will some around to what you’re making.
But new shit is scary to people.
It is, it’s always scary. And that’s the thing, I’m finally cool with people saying “this is dumb” or “this is stupid” because I’ve realized that I’m not going to be around to realize if that’s true or not. All I know is that it’s dope to me, and that’s what matters. That’s all I wanna do from now on, is make dope shit that we all think is dope. Worrying about someone being happy with what I make in 2085 is pointless to me. I’m done pandering. I was defnitley pandering for a long time, but I feel like it doesn’t help. And in some cases, there’s some things that people thought were done to pander, like when I dropped Eat Your Vegetables and people thought “oh that’s a Donkey Kong sample, he’s trying to appeal to nerds” but I never played Donkey Kong so I didn’t know that. I definitley used to make things because I knew people would be comfortable with them, but I’m done with that.
You seem to have gotten a lot better at rapping.
I’m going to say that’s drugs. It just made me less tense.
Things are going to happen, whether or not you’re ready. Advancements are going to be made in all fields. The internet just happened, we weren’t ready for it. That’s what I mean with giving an infant a handgun. There’s nobody judging whether or not we’re ready, but I feel that it’s my personal responsibility - and not me as Donlad Glover, I mean me as a person and a human - it’s up to all of us to use these tools and instead of making memes all the time, we should also be looking forward. Let’s look into 3D printing, let’s try to find something else that was cool.
There’s probably never going to be an era of those Johnny Carson stars that came out and you could only see them in a limited space for a limited time. People won’t be able to impact society like that, but that’s because those people weren’t thinking like that. They were just pushing themselves to do something innovative for no reason. The idea of fame didn’t exist back then, you just had to believe in what you were doing and find someone to do it with you. Everyone is so focused on eating that nobody is taking the time to make dope shit for no reason. That was part of the reason I dropped that video the way I did.
I paid for it all myself, I could’ve partnered up with Noisey or MTV. I didn’t make any money on that. I lost money. And it was shot on film, do you know how expensive it is to do it like that? Even my closest people were saying “are you sure you want to do this?” and I’m like yes. Because if not me then who else? When else? Who else could do something like that? Is ASAP going to do it? No, because he’s trying to eat and he probably doesn’t have disposable funds like that.
Do you regret it?
Absolutely not. I look at it every day. And sometimes I read the comments and I see that people have their own reasons for loving it or hating it, but that’s so great to me. What else does that? Because even The Fox, someone spent a lot of money on that to make it a meme and even then, it was a fantasy to some extent. That guy can take the fox mask off and watch the video without embarrassment. The video I made was me, for better or worse that’s me. That’s my story; I kissed a kid. That’s me. So I feel like I have to keep doing that, I can’t go back.
Fam: for the album, every song is going to have an accompanying script and a little vignette to go with it. So it’s going to be like a playable album.
I’m trying to make everything free. I’m like the joker of the rap game. I’m not in it for the money. I want money, just so I can have money to spend on other dope shit in the future. There’s some cool ways that we’re thinking of putting it out
How upset would you be if your greatest contribution to music after it’s all said and done, was introducing Chance the Rapper?
I’d be upset, but only with myself. It would be like, you had the tools to do something great and you didn’t. There’s nobody stopping you from doing what you want. Even with this label situation, we’re just now slowly coming around to the fact that we have to do whatever it takes. So I’d be upset, not because he’s not really good, but because I think I can be better than him if I push myself.
I haven’t done acid yet. It’s mostly just shrooms, edibles and weed. I’m doing Ayahuasca soon.
Don’t you need to be in a happy mindframe before you do Ayahuasca?
Do you? Here’s the thing, I’m always sad. I always just “see” myself. I did a heavy edible the night before and I was happy, but I remember some things that I said while I was on it like “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to people knowing who I am, or what my sister looks like”. The first time I got high I got really sad. But I kinda realized that’s who I am
Jhene opened me up. That line she said where it’s like “how are you going to trust me when you don’t trust yourself”, that really opened me up. She made me see the world differently, she understands. She never thinks about what people are going to think of her. At Rock the Bells she was supposed to go on stage but there was some fuckup, and her manager is trying to sort it out. She was just sitting down and I ask here “are you okay”, she just goes “yeah. This doesn’t mean shit, this doesn’t mean anything”. She made me realize that my natural state is nothingness. Me being here, you being here: beautiful fluke. Our natural state is nothingness, so why am I stressing out. I did shrooms with Azealia Banks and she said the most amazing things, she’s like “we’re all just tripping and tumbling towards the same end, I’m just having the most fun doing it” and it’s like, why aren’t I having that same amount of fun? Why am I worried? Why am I worried that a person isn’t going to like me? That person is going to be dead soon, we all are. I should be most concerned with pushing everything forward in the same way that the people before us have.
Was this album the most fun you’ve had creating music?
Absolutely. It was hard, but it was fun. That’s what one of the first things people said when they heard it, “it sound like you feel free” and I do. I’m not worried about consequences anymore, because consequences always end the same way. The people that came to hang out at the mansion. Bink didn’t get to be on the album, but I want to still list him an a producer because his aura or whatever just helped make everything fun during that time. Like, we just swam around and made smores a lot of the time and talked about shit and got angry and argued about everything. It was open, but it was still safe - as lame as that sounds. People’s feelings got hurt, people were pissed, but you knew where everyone stood. Nobody was hiding shit.
That’s my biggest beef with the label, is I don’t think they’re honest with me. I don’t think you can grow and build if someone is not honest with you, everything whack that’s happened in music has come from someone being surrounded by dishonest people. Fam will tell me that something is dumb or stupid if it is, and I might still do it because I’m a grown ass man. But for a long time I didn’t know what I stood for.
Do you have a mission statement?
I guess I could sum it down, but I feel like the second I do that, I become the business part of the thing I said before. I don’t want to be a business, ever, because I don’t want to end up becoming a racket. Like, look at Jay Z - and I think it’s great that he’s doing all this stuff, I’m glad that he’s a black dude doing that, but I don’t want that. The real world is bent around commoditizing something cool. I mean, look at Bob Marley posters and his face everywhere. He wouldn’t have gone for that if he was alive.
I like hipsters, like when I first came out hipsters were awesome. They were all about doing these neat little niche things, but then it became a movement that you could sell to. It became a business. So I don’t know what we’re doing, but I know what we stand for. But the day we give that a name or put a label on it is the day that we, for lack of a better word, start selling out. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I don’t know. But right now, it’s enjoyable. I love pissing people off. I love having people come and ask us to do shit and just saying “no.” And they’re like “but you’re gonna lose…” lose what? Fuck them. Even this trip, we’re here to do media all day tomorrow but we just said fuck it. Tell everyone that we’re supposed to meet with in the morning to just come to the park and we can talk there.
I try to say this at every show, but everyone is super powerful. Way more powerful than they know. That’s why I preach to everyone to learn coding. Learn coding, because that’s the future. That’s what I would tell Kanye, “you need to learn how to code”. I’m learning to code now, just because I have a bunch of dope ideas that I came up with on tour and if I hire someone to code them for me, they could just steal the idea. The way our parents used to look at keyboarding, that’s how coding is gonna be for us. That’s the key to getting black kids out of dangerous neighborhood. Do you realize how much money there is in coding? How much money people make up off apps?
Would your ideal eventual career path eventually mirror someone like Tina Fey, Jerry Seinfeld, Will Smith or Drake?
I want to be something completely different from everyone on that list.
Now, excluding Tina Fey from that list. Fuck, marry, kill.
Drake’s my boy, but he would not be fun to fuck, that would be really sad. I’d probably fuck Will Smith because he’s ripped. I’d marry Jerry Seinfeld because he’s so fucking rich. So by process of elimination, I’d have to kill Drake.
Why do you think rap critics don’t embrace you the same way they embrace Drake?
My biggest problem is that critics approach music with their mind made up just because they don’t like the person who’s making the music.
I put that on myself for not doing a good enough job. I definitely think that there’s reasons that they could use to say they do like me, but for whatever reason they don’t. And I get it. It’s like Jiro Dreams of Sushi where the customer had the best sushi ever at Jiro’s place and it turned out to be made by his son. And I knew that when Drake came out, I was like “fuck”. Because critics are gonna hate me, there’s gotta be a release valve for rapper/actor success. They can’t be like “fuck, this nigga’s great too! They’re both dope! What are the chances?” They aren’t gonna do that shit, and I knew that. But I have to be better, I have to beat him. And I’m not gonna beat Drake ever, I’m not that cool. I’m not gonna be smooth or cool, but I know I’m more imaginative than all these niggas. I’ve known that as a kid. I have more weird experiences to draw from.
Have you ever thought about making a concept album in order to stay away from the personal stuff that people use as ammunition?
That’s what this is. Even Camp was a character, but this is more of that. Dealing with critics is the same as dealing with the cops. Whose fault is it that I’m being harassed? It’s their fault, but at the same time, I know the rules. That’s what I’m trying to do with this album, is just not leave the critics anywhere to go. I want to make it so good and so thorough, that they’ll just have to concede in some areas of their critique.
You say you’re the son of Kanye. What does the son of Childish Gambino look like?
I just hope that he doesn’t feel sad about who he is. I feel like the son of me doesn’t have to worry about that. I look at Kanye like Steven Hawkins, he’s one of the brightest minds of our generation. But because he’s a black rapper he’s put in a box. Like when he was screaming about Justin Timberlake getting 15 minutes to perform even though Kanye has more Grammys than Michael Jackson - that frustration lives in me. And I don’t have the same level of frustration because I can do more than him - I’m a little better because people don’t look at me as a rapper, and my skin is lighter, and people aren’t as threatened. And Kanye has this wealth of knowledge, but people stop him because he’s an aggressive black male. I can go a little further, I can have the show, I can do the music. I understand how textures work in music, I can go a little further. I want the son of Childish to not even have to face those challenges.
What’s the next internet?
The next thing is just us all being connected to this cloud. We’ll all just be sitting around and I’ll wonder “what was the episode of George Lopez where … oh, got it.” and everyone in the group would get that data too. That’s possible, that’s not a crazy idea. But the second that happens, people will abuse that and try to stop it.
What do you think of Kanye’s tour merchandise? Is controversy useless if it’s not attached to a deeper purpose?
A little bit yeah, but he’s just playing the internet game that you have to play. Because while everyone is outraged, nobody really cares. You gotta write something, you gotta make controversy out of something. People who know who Kanye is aren’t upset. It’s just provocative. And we’re trying to find that, that thing that sparks controversy and gets a conversation started. That’s what we tried to do in the film with me mentioning how I kissed a boy, but it didn’t resonate the same way I thought it would. But maybe we’re just so deeply entrenched in the business that we can’t see what is causing controversy. That’s why Louis CK is great, when he flips off his daughter. That’s human, that’s real. People don’t fuck with it because they aren’t supposed to have those thoughts, but they do. Louis says he has a favorite daughter, and everyone does, but he’s saying it out loud. That’s what we want to do with rap.
